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Sitting on the steps leading to the landing, drinking coffee, surfing the web and looking out the window at my two monkeys romping in the side yard.

Most of you remember that we had a rough start with Joe when he was a puppy. Too much energy and not enough outlet for it, Jim was too old to romp with him and he just didn't really have a job. He and I took long walks twice a day and I took frequent tennis ball/Frisbee throwing breaks with him but he still just had energy out the ying yang.

So, we adopted Missy in January, after we made the hard decision to put 13+ year old Jim to sleep. Missy and Joe are a match made in Heaven or something very close. She actually has more energy than Joe has but when she wears him out, he just flops on his back and lets her have her way with him. He generally has an addled "You can do this all day" kind of look on his face then.

Someone here (forget who) posted that a tired dog is a happy dog and that is definitely true. They've been going at it outside for close to an hour, alternating between the run game, chasing and divebombing each other and either rough housing or gentle tussling (depending on their moods). So it appears to me, that Joe now has a job (playing with Missy) and Missy has a job (playing with Joe). I have never seen two dogs forge such a close relationship in such a short amount of time but these two have.

Even with Missy slamming into me and breaking my knee, I'm still so very glad that we adopted both of them and especially, hung in there with Joe. They are both two outstanding dogs, so full of love, energy and boundless enthusiasm and a zest for life that I've not seen with dogs before. Our dogs have always enjoyed each other but nothing like what these two do.

Guess it's my little speech about how rewarding adopting shelter dogs can be. Back to the floor show ; )

You can't determine their exact behavior until they have a chance to settle in. We recently adopted an 11 year old Chihuahua - now we have two 11 year old Chihuahuas. Our new one's owner passed and their dog was living at the vet. For the first week she growled at us - that went away and she acts like she lived here all her life. Adoption is definitely the way if you want a pet. And yes they've become best of friends - two old timers ! SA

Sundays my neighbor, Donald brings his dog, Lacy over for play day. Lacy out weighs Sunny by 6 or 7 pounds she is somewhat dominate in a "I'm the boss and here is how we're going to play" kinda way. That's great because Sunny is somewhat submissive and is glad just to have a friend. Sunny has a ball when when Lacy comes to visit. They go at it full force for about an hour. Then they will take a break, get a drink of water and after 30 seconds are right back at it.

Yesterday Sunny and me were in the back yard rebuilding the fence. I was doing all the work and she was sizing up the situation trying to figure if she could escape through the part where the old fence was down and the new fence was not built yet. And Don pulls up to help my next door neighbor blow the leaves off his roof. When Don got out of the truck Sunny about did back flips. It took her a few seconds to figure out that Lacy was not with him. She took this as an opportunity to slide through the hole and go say hi to Donald.

Note on the wall at my Vets office; Live each day like someone left the gate open.

We have relatively new neighbors living next door to us. Moved in late fall so don't know them well. 3 small kids who are very nice and respectful, which is kind of surprising today I guess. Dad or step-dad, not sure which seemed to move in after they were settled in. He's been an irritant as he walks over to the convenience store the next block over for his pack of cigs and energy drink and had decided that our yard was the appropriate short-cut (like 2 feet or less from our picture window in the living room. Every time he did that, Joe would go off and we'd have to stop whatever tv show we were watching. A couple of weeks ago, he started across the yard and Bob was just coming into the living room. He got to the door while the dude was still in our yard and nicely asked him to please use the side walk. Only problem was that he hadn't shut the storm door and Joe took that as an opportunity to make his grand escape. I was still using the walker and hobbled very quickly to the door, opened it and called Joe. He looked at me, Bob, the neighbor who by now is holding his toddler on his shoulders and probably had to change his drawers when he got home and by some stroke of good fortune, tucked his tail between his legs and booked into the house. Whew!

At any rate, Joe certainly made use of his chance to run wild and free for a few minutes. Still looks beautiful when he's running.

Down the street is a new subdivision. They're building all the houses toward the front and this leaves about 30 acres of vacant land in the back. Great place for Sunny to run. Until she saw the deer. Shes a hunting dog and all the yelling in the world wasn't going to stop her. But the ditch did, along with a few somersaults. She came back with her tail between her legs. I guess she thought somehow we gave her a correction for running off.

You "lifer's" will remember the picture of my old Buddy from my previous bio pic. For the rest picture a 26 pound border collie cross with 6-8" fur back of legs, bottom of tail, tummy etc....

Our two story house in Kenora is on a slab foundation partially below grade. We had "issues" with the weeping tile on the one side that rotted out the wall. I dug a nearly four foot deep trench through the clay on that side of the house, supported the upper story with teleposts and jacks and opened the wall up inside and out. Then it started to rain---for a week. We had our own personal reenactment of Vimy Ridge (WW1 battle in France see movie Passendale for visual)---incessant rain, trench ankle deep in gumbo and water, 24/7 vigil (this is where the dog comes in , see). Every time the Arc drifted out over Lake of the woods for deeper mooring, I'd re-open the wall and try to work on the studs. Whether he had been back in the house for 5 seconds or 5 hours, Buddy ( who was then still the fastest land animal in NW Ontario) was gone like wild geese in winter. SIGH .. go fetch up 26 pounds of dog and 45 pounds of gumbo, separate the two, leave mud in back yard/ tie dog to couch, now return to work. Repeat often. GRR.

Life is a short one way trip, don't blow it!Live hard,die young and leave no ill regrets!